Tennessee Christmas tree grower Joe Steiner said he lost about 2,500 white pines from the drought. He threw them away in this slew on his property.

Written by

Duane Marsteller
| The Tennessean

The ghost of this summer's weather could haunt holidays yet to come for Tennessee's Christmas tree growers.

Record heat and abnormally dry conditions conspired to cause significant losses, especially among seedlings and saplings, local growers say. That could result in higher prices in the future, when those trees would have been hitting the market.

"The drought sure made it rough this year," said Wayne Pressler, owner of Kirkwood Tree Farm in Clarksville, who estimated he lost about half of his roughly 400 trees. ...